


The Great Distance

by Raaj



Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Anxiety, Domestic Fluff, F/M, post Bravely Second, tiz being an insomniac again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-27 20:10:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14433180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raaj/pseuds/Raaj
Summary: Agnès is happy with her new life in Norende, until she realizes Tiz is withdrawing from it.  More than anything, she wants to be able to share the happiness she's found with her love.





	The Great Distance

It is not unusual for Tiz to wake before Agnès. While certainly no night owl, she does sleep peacefully and occasionally overlong. When she wakes up to find herself alone in the bed, she only has a few brief seconds to question it before she hears his familiar morning puttering about the kitchen and rolls back to lie down perhaps a little longer. Breakfast smells fill the air: the cooking of eggs and toast and his bacon, her tea. It’s a disappointment that he doesn’t come back to bed to kiss her awake as he does sometimes when she is reluctant to get out, with a shower of little pecks to encourage her, but after a few minutes she finds the motivation to rise anyway and join him at the table for the first meal of their day together.  
  
They spend every day together, now. This is already the second month of their marriage; there’d been no need for a long engagement, given how long they had had to travel together and get to know each other, and each other’s habit, during their journey to save Luxendarc from darkness. Indeed, Agnès suspects they would have been wed years ago… had it not been for Tiz’s condition.  
  
That’s in the past, now. He has his life ahead of him, and she hers, and they have agreed to bind the two together. It’s a simple life they live on the outskirts of Caldisla, with simple pleasures: a new, more open life for Agnès, no longer bound by traditions she’s come to find stifling. A second life, with a second family, for Tiz. When their eyes meet over the table, both smile, and Agnès tucks into her toast with an easy appetite.  
  
Crisp toast. Fresh jam. A cool, clean tablecloth she’s washed herself. On the counter, peach and plum seeds that she’ll plant with Tiz later in the day. In time, she’ll be able to make jam for both herself and to share with others. She’s learning so many small but practical skills lately, and the learning is a joy in itself, when she has such a patient, loving teacher. Perhaps she’s a bit of a housewife, or perhaps she simply wants to know she  _can_  provide for herself, her husband, and others in these ways, too. She doesn’t need to overthink it. Learning and broadening her experience is enough, for now.  
  
She hopes Tiz is as happy as she.

 

* * *

 

 

It is not unusual for Agnès to wake up alone anymore. She doesn’t know why, what caused the change, but Tiz has only twice been in bed when she woke up in the past fortnight. More often his side of the bed is empty, his warmth long gone from the sheets. He hasn’t said why he’s waking so early so often; he mumbled into his coffee about the rams being obnoxious once, but that hardly explains every time.  
  
She isn’t sure it needs explanation. She knows he isn’t going anywhere, not far, because it doesn’t take long for her to hear or spot him after she wakes; if he’s not in the house, he’s in the barn, checking on the ewes and lambs. It doesn’t seem to be a problem with her; his face still lights up when he sees her.  
  
But then there are the times when he doesn’t see her, when he hasn’t realized she’s woken up yet, and his face looks so tense and dark.  
  
“Is something wrong?”  
  
“Huh?” It’s a bright smile he gives her, but he seems confused, taken off-guard. “Ah, no, it’s nothing. I’m a little tired still, maybe.”  
  
“I hope I have not been waking you up.” She says it lightly, knowing it’s not her. He would have told her if the matter was as simple as her knocking into him or some such. But she means it as an invitation for him to tell her if something else is disturbing him.  
  
He’s always been a light sleeper, though, and he reminds her of that, as if it explains everything. Perhaps it does. She doesn’t know that much about marriage, is learning as she goes. She has heard of a “honeymoon” period. She supposes people wouldn’t be very productive if couples always felt like sleeping in on most mornings.  
  
But she misses it. Not… the laziness, so much. The small gestures of affection, given freely and just because. Tiz is still kind and loving. How could he not be? But he feels more distant, now.  
  
Of course he does. She knows there is something wrong. Something he’s not telling her, and it makes her uneasy, no matter how much she tries to rationalize it. The last time he wasn’t telling her something important, sent her off with assurances, Edea and she arrived to the reunion only to find him… just thinking about it makes her chest tighten.  
  
He often holds her with his arm draped over her stomach as they fall asleep, his presence a physical reassurance–though its effectiveness is starting to wane when he always leaves her alone before the dawn. This night she rolls over to tuck her head close to his chest, even though she’s not used to sleeping on her side. She wants to hold him close. She wants him to trust her.  
  
“Agnès?”  
  
“You would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”  
  
He exhales loudly. “Nothing is wrong, though,” he says, and his tone is a bit wheedling, trying to make her believe him, rather than convincing. “I’m happy. I’m really happy. I love being with you. I love living here. Caldisla is so peaceful, and we can go and see Karl and Egil anytime. I feel like I have a family again.” Now he sounds sincere. Though maybe that’s because she doesn’t want to think of what insincerity would mean, here. “Everything is fine. Better than fine.”  
  
She doesn’t press it, just inches herself a little more closely to him. He pets her hair until she falls asleep, and kisses her awake in the morning with little peppered kisses, and everything seems nice, even if she knows she’s being indulged. At least he stayed with her. He’s by her side the next morning, too, and she thinks, maybe she did make too much of it in her mind. Maybe he just needed to hear that she didn’t like the change in what they had established as routine. Maybe she just imagined the shadows in his face… still is…?  
  
The night after that, she wakes up alone, her arm already stretched out to her husband’s vacant side of the bed. Her heart sinks a little, to see how dark it is, and him already gone. It’s not anywhere close to dawn. She doesn’t understand why he keeps leaving so early, and frowns as she splays her fingers out over his pillow.  
  
…It’s damp. The unexpected moistness must be what made her wake up this time, when she didn’t wake up any of the other times: she just chanced to touch this spot and… she knows what it’s from.  
  
She bolts from the bed with her heart in her throat, holding herself close as she walks through the house to find Tiz. He’s been crying–something’s been hurting him, and he didn’t tell her, why didn’t he–? It’s unacceptable. More than that, it’s worrying. Why won’t he tell her?  
  
When she doesn’t hear him immediately, she conjures a small fire in hand for light to have a better look around the house. It’s as she passes by the window that she spots him: barefoot in the wet grass, only half-dressed to begin with, his head sunk down on his knees and covered by his hands. With his frame stooped like that, he looks so small and miserable. The first thing she does when she gets out the door, before he even has time to look up at the noise, is pull him up into a hug.  
  
Though she does have to fight a sigh when the first thing he says is: “Sorry.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Nothing’s wrong. It’s just me.”  
  
Agnès knows how to boil water for tea, but not how to brew coffee. It’s not important right now. At this time of night, Tiz just needs warm milk, and heating it shouldn’t be too different from boiling water, right? Her attention is divided between the small pot and the way that her friend and partner is staring holes into the kitchen table.  
  
“I’ve never seen you cry without reason,” she says evenly. Trying to be patient, the way he would be with her. But she needs an explanation. “So I cannot help thinking there is a reason.” She can’t simply go on as though everything is fine when it’s not; that’s not working even for Tiz, obviously.  
  
“…It was a nightmare,” he admits. “I’ve been having them more often, lately.”  
  
‘More’ often. Was he having them often before, too? “Why?” He keeps refusing to say what’s gone wrong. It’s wearying.  
  
The way his head sinks down to the table says he’s tired, too, and when he gives her a look both miserable and pleading without lifting his head, she realizes it may be more than stubbornness keeping him from saying. “There’s no reason at all,” he says, and, “I don’t know how to explain it, Agnès. I wish I could. I’m happy, but all I can think of is ways things could go wrong, and–and I know it doesn’t make sense, it’s just stupid. We’ve fought against despair and won when things were most dire, so why should I be losing now?”  
  
“Perhaps because you are treating this as a battle to fight alone.” She tries to temper the comment, but he used to scold her for refusing help, too. He ought to see the contradiction between his advice and his approach to his own problems. “What are you scared will go wrong?”  
  
“…I have nightmares of people trying to take you again. Of another chasm opening, or some other disaster, and this time it’s Caldisla that falls.” He’s not looking at her now, but past her, his eyes flat. Right now, he’s not trying to hide his exhaustion at all. “Sometimes, it’s just the hourglass running out.”  
  
“The…” Oh. The instant she sees the hand at his chest and understands what he’s alluding to, she feels a shudder come over her. It’s something they don’t really talk about. The fact that without Celestial intervention, Tiz would be dead. The fact that, due to the precariousness of being kept alive by a Celestial, he’s experienced the process of dying more than once. In hindsight, Agnès feels stupid for having thought they could just not talk about it, even if he should no longer be in danger. But she’s at last gaining a clearer idea of what the problem is. “None of those things are 'nothing’.”  
  
“I know. But they aren’t happening, they shouldn’t happen. Right?”  
  
“They will not.” The milk froths with bubbles, and she hastily takes the pot off the fire. It doesn’t need to actually boil, she remembers.  
  
While he might normally have had something to say about that small panic, Tiz has his eyes shut for the moment, trying to gather words. She listens as she rummages for a cup for the milk. “When I… was having nightmares about Til… I was grieving for him, too. But this isn’t about grief any longer. It’s just… worry, worry, and more useless worry. It’s like my mind’s turned into that old sheepdog who would bark at every shadow.”  
  
She doesn’t remember the sheepdog, but at this time of night it could as easily be her forgetting the dog as Tiz forgetting he hadn’t told her about the dog. What he means is clear enough anyway, and it’s a little upsetting. “Tiz? Whether it is useful or not, even if those things should never happen again, you are not wrong to worry. Nothing is wrong with you, either.” She and Ringabel have had trouble coping with things that happened to them too, at one time. Even Edea had some difficulty adjusting back to a peaceful life in Eternia, to not having to fight her family and friends, though Agnès doesn’t know if Tiz is aware of that; he likely isn’t. Edea had only confessed it to her sometime after Tiz’s collapse. By that time, she had been the closest confidante Edea had  _left_.  
  
“…Thank you. I really hope you’re right,” he murmurs. “I’m not used to feeling this way. I keep hoping it’ll pass, but it doesn’t…”  
  
“That’s when you should ask for help, isn’t it?”  
  
“I didn’t want to trouble you,” he says, though in a smaller voice. So he at least recognizes she doesn’t approve of this logic, then. “You deserve better than to have to deal with…”  
  
She casts her eyes at the ceiling, counts to three, and then takes the cup of heated milk to the table and plants it in front of him firmly, so he looks up at her. “Do I deserve what I want, at least?”  
  
“What?” The question genuinely baffles him. “Of course.”  
  
“Then I want you to let me be your wife,” she says firmly. “Allow me to support you when you need support. That was one of the vows I took in becoming Agnès Arrior. You know I do not take vows lightly.”  
  
“I know, but what if it–what if this doesn’t go away?”  
  
She pauses for three seconds. Just long enough for him to know she isn’t blurting it out. “Then you are still my husband, and I still love you.”  
  
She does not understand marriage so well, given her sheltered life; is learning as she goes. But she is certain of that much. She will not love Tiz any less because he’s suffering from weakness. As long as he’s trying his hardest–which she knows he is–and as long as he does not leave her in the dark–which she needs him to understand isn’t as comforting as he seems to think it is.  
  
He falls quiet, and she slides the warm cup closer to him with a small kiss on his temple before taking a seat. The next few minutes pass quietly as he drinks, Agnès contemplating on what Tiz might have tried already, what else there might be to try. Has he asked a doctor? She doubts it. Even if the doctors in Caldisla don’t know what to do for excessive worry, perhaps an Eternian doctor… while Edea said that talking to her was a great comfort, she had alluded that she was doing other things as well to help. They should write…  
  
It’s Tiz who breaks the silence, with an awkward “um” and a small sniffle as he rubs his eye, making Agnès start as she comes out of her thoughts. “Tiz? Are you crying again?” What had she said?  
  
“A–a little,” he admits. “It’s nothing bad, I promise. You’re so sweet. I love you, Agnès. And–and I think I’ve gotten about fifteen hours of proper sleep this entire week, so I’m kind of…”  
  
Ah. Not at his most composed, even without taking nightmares into account. “Once you finish drinking, we ought to go back to bed,” she says quietly. He really does need more rest.  
  
When he calms and they finally climb back into bed, he shifts around awkwardly for a moment, but she knows how she wants to sleep and moves to wrap her arm around him, holding him close and nuzzling his neck. They are safe. He deserves to feel safe. And if he can’t sleep, she wants to know, though that might mean sacrificing some sleep of her own. “If it would help you calm down, you can wake me anytime,” she offers.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
She’s not sure he’ll immediately take her up on it, but the offer is made. She won’t think any less of him for admitting weakness, or feel put upon for being asked to help.  
  
While Tiz falls back asleep quickly that night, lulled by the warm milk, it’s far from the last night he has trouble sleeping. Nor does he immediately quit the habit of trying to handle things on his own; there are a couple occasions Agnès wakes to find her arms empty.  
  
But there are nights when she wakes up to her name being called plaintively. “I’m here,” she answers, giving him a small squeeze, and often–not every time, unfortunately, but often enough to help–all he needs is some time to talk and be reassured that everything is fine for his mind to calm back down and allow him to sleep. It helps even more when they hear back from Edea about their letter.  
  
Gradually, he starts to sleep better. He stays with her most nights, and she wakes up to sweet kisses in the morning. More importantly, he’s better-rested and smiles more often and more genuinely again, regaining his trust in a peaceful life.  
  
Agnès is happy with this life, too. Things aren’t always perfect, but she did not ask for perfection when she married Tiz Arrior. She simply asked to be his companion.


End file.
